Rory McIlroy using new TaylorMade BRNR Mini Driver Copper at RBC Heritage

Harbour Town Golf Links, home of the RBC Heritage, presents a unique challenge to PGA TOUR players. Its relatively short, tight and winding layout makes course management a chess match.

Players must position themselves off the tee to the proper distances and locations in the fairway to have an unobstructed line to the green and not be blocked by overhanging trees.

Long hitters can succeed at Harbour Town, but it’s not a “bomb-and-gauge” course. Far from it. Due to the sharp doglegs and tight lines off the tee, it’s easy for longer hitters to hit the ball too far, leaving them in a difficult position, or chipping out sideways.

As such, early-week equipment testing at the RBC Heritage was focused around long irons, driving irons and utility woods that can help shape the ball from right to left and left to right.

Rory McIlroy, ranked fourth in Driving Distance on the PGA TOUR, has added TaylorMade’s new BRNR Mini Driver Copper 13.5-degree club to his bag this week, and removed his 3-wood.

TaylorMade’s new BRNR Mini Driver Copper club is a second-generation release and features a head shape that’s similar to a driver. The BRNR Mini Copper is smaller than a driver, yet bigger than a 3-wood, thus offering slightly more spin and workability than a driver, but slightly more distance and forgiveness than a 3-wood.

On Tuesday, McIlroy told GolfWRX.com that the RBC Heritage at Harbour Town Golf Links would be “a good week” to debut the club, due its demands for placement off the tee.

McIlroy began testing the new BRNR Mini Driver prior to the Valero Texas Open, and he had it in the bag during practice rounds for the Masters.

McIlroy never ended up using the club during the Masters, however, opting instead to stick with his TaylorMade Qi10 3-wood.

This week, though, the BRNR Mini is expected to be in McIlroy’s starting lineup when he tees off at 1:40 p.m. on Thursday. When asked on Wednesday following his morning pro-am if he planned on using the new, nostalgic BRNR Copper this week, he said, “I think so.”

Adrian Rietveld, senior manager of Tour TaylorMade, works closely with McIlroy on his equipment needs, and he offered some further insight:

“For someone like Rory, who’s that long at the top end of the bag, and then you put him on a course like Harbour Town, it’s tough off the tee,” Rietveld said. “It’s tight into the greens, and you have to put yourself in position off the tee to have a shot into the green. It kind of reminds me of Valderrama in Spain, where you can be in the fairway and have no shot into the green.

“I’m caddying for Tommy [Fleetwood] this week, so I was walking the course last night and looking at a few things,” he continued. “There’s just such a small margin for error. You can be standing in the fairway at 300 yards and have a shot, but at 320 you don’t. So if you don’t hit a perfect shot, you could be stuck behind a tree. And then if you’re back at 280, it might be a really tough shot into the small greens.

“So for Rory [with the BRNR], it’s a nice course-specific golf club for him. He’s got both shots with it; he can move it right to left or left to right. And the main thing about this club has been the accuracy and the dispersion with it. I mean, it’s been amazing for Tommy.

“This was the first event Tommy used a BRNR last year, and I remember talking to him about it, and he said he couldn’t wait to play it at Augusta next year. And he just never took it out of the bag because he’s so comfortable with it, and hitting it off the deck.

“So you look at Rory, and you want to have the tools working to your advantage out here, and the driver could hand-cuff him a bit with all of the shots you’d have to manufacture.”

For more information and photos of Rory’s switch, head over to GolfWRX.com.